Stop working for $5 per hour

This is a message small business owners: You are doing too much sub-minimum wage work! 

In the last few years, you've likely trimmed your staff, and now you are the chief cook-shipping clerk and task runner for your company.  Much of it isn't worth your time, after all, when your business is booked - you are worth hundreds of dollars per hour! 

When you spend your time mailing, sorting, sifting and even blogging/tweeting, etc. - you are eliminating time and energy to earn what you are really worth.  Think about it: How much time do you invest in these activities versus what income they actually produce?  Do you really think that washing your own car or cleaning your own office is still necessary?  You act like it's still Oct 2008 when you do this and to quote Tom Peters: You cannot shrink your way to greatness.

This is going to be a big emphasis for me, personally, in the coming months.  I'm going to delegate or eliminate all tasks that deliver less than 50% of my average hourly billing in return.  That includes hiring someone to help me get from idea-to-blog much faster.  I'm going to stop touching paper, shipping things or running errands for the sake of getting out.  I'll reinvest my time into marketing my speaking/consulting business and writing books.  Everything else, is g-o-n-e.  

Here's your takeaway: Write down a list of everything you did this week that took ANY time.  Note how many of them you've taken on in the last year due to necessity or being seduced into it as a "mindless task" far easier than being creative.  You'll be shocked to find that up to half you time is in these area.  I know the high value work is more challenging - but you are worth it! 

Comments

[Barfo Rama]

Don't forget to cost the humility example for the increased morale when your workers see no task is too humble for anyone.

Oh, is it hard to cost goodwill? Well, I guess everyone deciding you are an arrogant jerk and quitting will help the bottom line.

That dumbass Taylor still screws up everyone's head. Maximizing productivity at the expense of everything else is a loser game, a big blinking sign of poor management.

[Steve Boehme]

Yes. I've always felt this way but it's soooo easy to backslide. I always tease business owners: "you must be the owner because you're (sweeping the floor, cleaning the bathroom, etc. etc. ad nauseum) but I fall into the same trap myself. There's no one else in my business as qualified to sort pallets, straighten the bagged goods, take an "up" on the sales floor, and so on. My goal and objective is to delegate any task that doesn't absolutely require my skills to comnplete it. Only by improving the skills of those that work for me cam i free myself to do the things that requre my absolute attention, as Sid says "the real work of retail".

[Iskandar]

Greetings Tim,

Thanks. Read something similar down that thought from the book, The Millionaire Mind, by Thomas J. Stanley.

Great minds think alike I guess.

[Ryan Stephens]

Tim,

I find this interesting as I certainly realize the value of trimming the fat so to speak; however, I would think a big portion of your success comes from the value you acquire in the relationships you cultivate through e-mail or otherwise. Where do tasks such as pinging people you haven't talked to in a while, offering suggestions via e-mail, etc. fall into this new approach?

Cheers,
Ryan

[Ben]

Brilliant!